Jo Ingles (Ohio Public Radio)

Jo Ingles is an award-winning journalist who began her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s. Through the years, she’s worked in both radio and television as a reporter and production assistant. She’s assisted in the production of a presidential debate for ABC Television news, reported for a major commercial radio station in Louisville, and then came back to her native Ohio to begin working at the WOSU Stations in Columbus Ohio in 1989 to begin a long resume of work in public radio.

After working for more than a decade as a general assignment reporter at WOSU-AM, Jo was hired by the Ohio Public Radio/TV News Bureau where she’s worked for the past 11 years. She’s covered everything from tax hikes to Supreme Court proceedings to educational policies. Jo lives in southern Delaware county with her husband Roger and two children.

The past week hasn’t been kind to Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the Democrat running for Ohio Governor. He answered some uncomfortable questions about incidents that have surfaced in various news reports, but hasn’t responded to more questions that have come up. His problems are raising questions about what, if anything, this will mean to other Democrats running for statewide office.

The Ohio Department of Veterans Services is trying to get the word out about cash bonuses available to vets who have served since September 11, 2001.

A spokesman for the department says 81,000 Ohio vets have already received bonuses totaling tens of millions of dollars, but an important deadline is approaching: This is the last year for veterans who served in Iraq between March 2003 and December of 2011 to apply for the bonus.

Dayton celebrated Independence Day with 4th of July fireworks at Riverscape Park last night, and tonight look out for fireworks displays in Yellow Springs, Moraine, Englewood and at the Centerville Americana Festival. There are also displays at King’s Island and Waynesville.

Hitting an official show is a good idea, because some experts are recommending against backyard fireworks—saying they may not be legal, and that they can be disturbing or even traumatic for veterans.

Ohioans will vote on primary races for statewide offices, including Governor, as well as a statewide ballot issue that would allow the state to issue bonds for some capital improvements. There are more than 600 local issues on the ballot too.

On April first, election boards will start to mail out absentee ballots to those who have requested them, or Ohioans who want to vote early, in person, can vote at the early voting center designated by their county board of elections.

The Chairman of Ohio’s Republican Party denies he or his party is behind the challenges to Libertarian Candidate Charlie Earl’s candidacy. Libertarian candidates say those statements, which were made as part of a federal court hearing on Monday, could be important in the future.

The Ohio House has held off taking a formal vote on a plan to let schools take up to four additional days off this year because of the season's extreme weather.

At issue is a disagreement over how many days to allow. House Speaker Bill Batchelder says members plan to take an additional week to continue to work on the number of days in the proposal and review its costs.

If a same sex couple who is married in another state has a child together, only one parent’s name can be listed on an Ohio birth certificate. Now a lawsuit has been filed that would change that.

Cincinnati Attorney Al Gerhardstein says it is unfair that two heterosexual married parents of a child can have both of their names listed on a birth certificate yet two married homosexual parents have to choose just one name to put on that document.

Communities that need money for local transportation projects are in luck.

The Ohio Department of Transportation is providing 16 million dollars to local communities for transportation improvements. During the next few months, ODOT will work with local communities to come up with funding needs for two programs – one for small cites, the other to replace local bridges. About 8 million dollars will go to each program.

Republican state Reps. Tony Burkley and Brian Hill have introduced a plan to add four calamity days this year following a call from Gov. Kasich who said many schools have exhausted their five allowable days off for snow or bad weather, or soon will.

John Charlton at the Ohio Department of Education explains the Governor thinks many schools are going to exhaust the five calamity days now currently allowed by law. And Charlton says the hope is the extra calamity days will make it safer for school children.

There’s an online registry in Ohio that identifies habitual drunk drivers but recently, there have been cases where there have been gaps in that database. Staff Lieutenant Anne Ralston of the Ohio State Highway Patrol says the agency has upgraded the registry so that it compiles up to date information automatically from already existing electronic records.

“Prior to the revamp of the system, we only had 348 people who were habitual offenders who were being captured on the registry. Now after the revamp, we have over 5300 habitual offenders on the registry.”